This refers, belatedly, to the Barry Rubin article “The Real Roots of Arab Anti-Americanism’ from the current Foreign Affairs – I’m not sure who posted it here, but someone did. I saved it for further notice, which I finally got around to giving it.
The thing that struck me about this piece was the disconnection between substance and conclusion, something one sees with unsettling frequency these days.
Rubin’s thesis, summarized, is this:
Arab and Muslim hatred of the United States is not just, or even mainly, a response to actual U.S. policies -- policies that, if anything, have been remarkably pro-Arab and pro-Muslim over the years. Rather, such animus is largely the product of self-interested manipulation by various groups within Arab society, groups that use anti-Americanism as a foil to distract public attention from other, far more serious problems within those societies.
Rubin justifies this contention at some length, and does it well; he presents a strong case and I largely agree with him. Possibly the most significant implication of this thesis is that the “various groups within Arab society” that have provoked and exploited anti-Americanism through “self-interested manipulation” of the Arab masses are relying on Anti-Americanism to ensure their own survival. The most prominent of these groups would of course be the radical Arab governments, which have used and cultivated anti-Americanism as a distraction from their own notable economic and political failings. A society that sees itself as under attack by an outside aggressor naturally rallies around its own leaders, even if those leaders are visibly deficient; deficient leaders know this and are always eager to postulate an external threat, preferably a large and imposing one.
Radical Arab governments are not the only ones that thrive on Anti-Americanism. Groups like al Qaeda need anti-Americanism even more than radical governments do. Al Qaeda was formed – with extensive CIA involvement – to give Muslims from many different countries an extra-national vehicle for resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. When that occupation ended, the reason for al Qaeda’s existence ended with it, unless the leaders of al Qaeda could locate or create another superpower antagonist to justify their own continued existence. This, in my opinion, was one of the primary motivations behind the 9/11 attacks: to create a lasting state of elevated antagonism between the US and Islam, a state that would ensure a continuing and expanded leadership role for an extranational Islamic militant movement.
Rubin argues that incompetent radical Islamic governments and terrorist movements have used traditional political demagoguery, manipulated information, miseducation, and religious chicanery to lead their populations on a lemming-like march into the shithole, under the banner of resistance to American imperialism and moral corruption. I think he’s right.
When he starts drawing conclusions, though, agreement ends. The two key paragraphs, one from the article’s beginning and one from its end:
If Arab anti-Americanism turns out to be grounded in domestic maneuvering rather than American misdeeds, neither launching a public relations campaign nor changing Washington's policies will affect it. In fact, if the United States tries to prove to the Arab world that its intentions are nonthreatening, it could end up making matters even worse. New American attempts at appeasement would only show radicals in the Middle East that their anti-American strategy has succeeded and is the best way to win concessions from the world's sole superpower…..
What, then, should Washington do? U.S. policymakers should understand that various public relations efforts, apologies, acts of appeasement, or policy shifts will not by themselves do away with anti-Americanism. Only when the systems that manufacture and encourage anti-Americanism fail will popular opinion also change. In the interim, the most Washington can do is show the world that the United States is steadfast in support of its interests and allies. This approach should include both standing by Israel and maintaining good relations with moderate Arab states -- which should be urged to do more publicly to justify U.S. support. Steadfastness and bravery remain the best way to undermine the practical impact of Arab anti-Americanism.
The body of Rubin’s article demonstrates quite convincingly that a small number of leaders have created Islamic anti-Americanism, using largely fictitious justifications, to manipulate a much larger population into following them despite their own obvious failings. His conclusions, oddly, completely abandon this dichotomy between deceptive leaders and deceived followers. The radical Arab states become sullen monotone blocks, unthinking followers, impervious to reason, implacably hostile. The only way to deal with them is “steadfastness and bravery”, a polite way of saying that civilized standards must be imposed on these lesser breeds without the law, whether they like it or not.
Rubin goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Islamic Anti-Americanism is the product of a small group deceiving a larger one. He then ignores the obvious conclusion that in the long term, one of our most important tasks is to undecieve that larger group, driving a wedge between leaders and followers and depriving the leaders of the support base they need. Rubin says “If Arab anti-Americanism turns out to be grounded in domestic maneuvering rather than American misdeeds, neither launching a public relations campaign nor changing Washington's policies will affect it.” He says nothing to support that statement, which directly opposes the deduction that the reader draws from the body of his argument: that in the long run public relations is one of our most crucial tasks.
Fortunately, this is a task we are well equipped to undertake. Throughout history, imperialists have tried to spread their culture, their products, their commerce throughout the known world. All have failed, brought down by the simple reality that conquest and occupation ultimately cost more than can be squeezed out of the occupied territories. Where they have failed, America has succeeded. Our culture and our commerce have penetrated every continent and gained us influence in every corner of the world, at least every corner exposed to broadcast technology. How did we accomplish this? By doing what we do best. That’s not fighting: our military prowess is impressive, but it’s not our strongest point. We did it by demonstrating that we have a better, more efficient economic system, that our society provides people with more of what they want, and that our stuff is better and more desirable. We didn’t ram our culture down anyone’s throat. We sold it to them.
That is our challenge in the Middle East, in the long run: sell the product. We have to convince people that we are not the enemy, and that the radicals are, and that if they move in our direction they will have more of what they want. The nicest thing about this proposition, of course, is that it’s true.
In the long run, our most effective weapons in this war will be television sets, not cruise missiles. If we can make them fear us, we may gain temporary peace. If we can make them want to shop at the Gap and listen to Britney Spears, we win.
Our confrontation with the Soviet Union provides a valuable object lesson here. That conflict, in the final analysis, was settled by a single truth: Communism sucks. A society that was generated wealth, that produced an astonishing variety of innovations, that was able to satisfy the aspirations of its people confronted one that was systemically incapable of accomplishing anything but stagnation, repression, and deprivation. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. We didn’t have to attack, we didn’t have to impose our values or our ways or our products, we didn’t have to force the outcome. We had to protect ourselves against attack and wait while a fundamentally non-viable system rotted out from the inside.
When an enemy’s strength is growing, an aggressive stance is called for. When the enemy’s strength is waning, especially when they are threatened with internal dissent, biding time and adopting a conciliatory posture are more effective strategies. Aggressive maneuvers will be counterproductive; they only make it easier for the opposing leaders to push that “external threat” button.
Rubin proclaims that “Only when the systems that manufacture and encourage anti-Americanism fail will popular opinion also change.” He does not mention the possibility that one of the leading reasons for failure of such systems is that popular opinion changes first, undermining their support. He does not discuss the possibility that leaders can be brought down more easily by undermining their popular support – always a viable possibility with an incompetent government – than by external assault. He does not mention that in the last 50 years a lot more repressive governments have fallen to internal resistance than to external attack.
Another Rubin contention is that “…if the United States tries to prove to the Arab world that its intentions are nonthreatening, it could end up making matters even worse. New American attempts at appeasement would only show radicals in the Middle East that their anti-American strategy has succeeded and is the best way to win concessions from the world's sole superpower”. This is a line we hear a lot these days, mostly from people with a vested or pre-existing interest in seeing existing policies sustained without serious examination. This argument is flawed. It assumes that all policies that do not involve threat constitute appeasement, an assumption made without presentation of any supporting evidence or logic. Rubin's argument places the demands of external perception above honest assessment of a policy’s effectiveness. If we assume that policies in the Middle East cannot be changed – even if they don’t work – because changing them might be perceived as a concession, we have left the path of wisdom far behind.
Rubin believes that radical Muslim governments and terrorist groups are sustaining themselves by convincing their people that the US is a real and present threat to them. In this environment, we have to consider that a threatening posture might end up reinforcing this argument. It is easier to convince people that the US is a threat to Muslims when diplomacy is being conducted with cruise missiles and armored divisions.
It seems to me that we face two challenges in the Middle East. First, we have to protect ourselves against further attack. There is much room for debate over how this can best be done; my own view is that we need less talk of invasions and occupations and regime change and a whole lot more of the sort of thing that happened on that highway in Yemen. The second challenge, equally important, is to convince Muslims that the US does not threaten them and that their own leaders do. That’s a fair challenge, but I think we can accomplish it. After all, we’re the ones that convinced the world that a Big Mac is food…. |
